Taiwan Church News
3358 Edition
July 4 – 10, 2016
Church Ministry
Famous Bible Scholar And Translator, Dr. Loh I-jen, Died At 81-Year-Old
Reported by Lin Jia-ching
The famous Bible scholar and translator, Dr. Loh I-jen, died on 27 May 2016 at 81 years old. In the morning on 2 July, a commemorative and thanks-giving service of Dr. Loh I-jen was held by his families in Chung-shan Presbyterian Church at Taipei. Many church leaders, including Rev. Chou Lien-hua, Rev. Tsai Jen-li, Dr. Simon S. M. Wong, Mr. Koh Wei-sen and Rev. Cheng Cheng-jen, from the fields of the Bible translation or theological education attended this memorial service.
Born on 16 January 1935, in little Tamsuei town of Taipei City, Dr. Loh I-jen determined to study theology at his teen age under the influence of his father – Rev. Loh Hsien-tsun. Dr. Loh graduated from Taiwan Theological Seminary in 1958, assigned to minister at the Cheng-chong Presbyterian Church between 1958 and 1960, acquainted with his wife Dr. Kao Tieng-shiang during his service as church pastor, continued his graduate study at Princeton Theological Seminary and earned his PhD at New Testament studies in 1968.
After receiving his PhD degree and returning back to Taiwan in 1968, Dr. Loh served as New Testament professor and administrator in both Taiwan Theological Seminary and South East Asia School of Theology. From 1971, he accepted the assignment of United Bible Society(UBS) as a Translator Fellow of American Bible Society, and started to proceed a translation project for a modern Chinese Bible translation.
In 1974, Dr. Loh was appointed as an Asia-Pacific translation counselor for UBS; he became the General Counselor of UBS’s Asia-Pacific area in 1978. From 1986 to 2000, Dr. Loh acted an UBS Director of Special Ministry instructing the Bible translation and circulation for the minority peoples especially those located in Laos, Vietnam and China.
It is generally acknowledged that of Dr. Loh’s most important contribution to the global Chinese church lies in his accomplishment, a team-work together with Rev. Chou Lien-hua and Dr. Wang Cheng-chang, of translating the Bible into a version of the modern Chinese. Witnessing Dr. Loh’s missionary enthusiasm to print out 20 million copies of modern Chinese Bible within a decade, Rev. Tsai Jen-li praised his hard-working spirit was just like his most loved and collected wood-sculpted models of Taiwan buffalo – full of strenuous strength and resilient dynamics.
Mr. Koh Wei-sen, Director of Nanjing Amity Printing Co. Ltd., remarked that 75 millions Chinese will appreciate the gigantic contribution made by Dr. Loh delivering the first ever Chinese Bible of the simplified characters with an accustomed left-to-right page edition.
Translated by Peter Wolfe
Many famous church leaders from global Chinese churches attended the commemorative and thanks-giving service for Dr. Loh I-jen in Chung-shan Presbyterian Church at Taipei on 2 July 2016.
Photo by Lin Jia-ching
